PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

EVOLVE 9 - GARGANO VS TAYLOR DVD REVIEW: RONIN MEMBERS BATTLE TO DETERMINE THE WINS LEADER, FIT FINLAY ENGAGES IN A STIFF BATTLE WITH SAMI CALLIHAN, KEVIN STEEN APPEARS AND SPEAKS HIS MIND ABOUT HIS FORMER (AND FUTURE) EMPLOYER, AND MUCH MORE

YOU CAN ORDER THIS SATURDAY'S EVOLVE 10 iPPV FEATURING THE FINAL EVER ECW ARENA EVENT BY CLICKING ABOVE

In my review of EVOLVE 8, I noted that the company had to do something different because three guys who had been main eventing weren't on the show. EVOLVE 9 swings in the completely opposite direction as it featured the EVOLVE debut of both Kevin Steen and Fit Finlay. Even though the show would be main evented by (and named for) the Johnny Gargano vs Chuck Taylor match that would close the show, much of the hype for the show centered around the appearances of Steen and Finlay.

Steen was in the midst of a year away from Ring of Honor to sell the angle where he lost his career at Final Battle 2010, and it made perfect sense that a guy who had made it known how bitter he was at his former employer would show up at the competition. He was merely advertised as showing up for an open mic opportunity to share his thoughts, but I think most people probably suspected he'd wind up competing.

For Finlay, he had also found himself without a job, except in his case he had been legitimately fired. EVOLVE jumped at the opportunity to bring him in, and it was a natural that he'd be matched up with one of EVOLVE's hardest hitters in Sami Callihan. Then, of course, was the main event between Gargano and Taylor, two guys who were partners in Dragon Gate USA, but were rivals in EVOLVE even though they were both being sponsored by the notorious Larry Dallas. Gargano had beaten Taylor to emerge as the sole wins leader in EVOLVE, but did so via questionable means and now Taylor had the chance to even the score.

EVOLVE 9: 7/25/2011 in New York City, New York

The show kicked off with a match between Bobby Beverly and Eric Ryan, and this was very reminiscent of one of those old ECW matches where they'd throw two prelim guys out there to go through the motions until someone who mattered ran in, killed them both, and cut a big promo. In this case, the someone who mattered was Kevin Steen, and he proceeded to cut a big promo tearing down Jim Cornette and Ring of Honor, then talking about how ROH forced him to team with the masked idiot who will remain nameless and the guy who was in charge of ROH at that time is running the show here in ROH, so he feels like he has to destroy EVOLVE too. Bobby Fish comes out to confront him and says that EVOLVE has spent two years formulating their way of doing things and he's not going to let Steen run roughshod over the company and wants to face him tonight.

Now we go to the second match on the show, as the Super Smash Brothers face Jason Gory & Facade, with both teams at 0-1 and needing a win coming out of this match. Pretty standard stuff out of both guys, the crowd was solidly behind the SSB most likely due to them being a bit more familiar to the fanbase, and the SSB picked up the win to go 1-1 in EVOLVE competition.

The third match saw Silas Young take on Sugar Dunkerton, a fan friendly character who has an appearance reminiscent of the Harlem Globetrotters in that he's an upbeat and athletic guy who comes out dressed like a basketball player, complete with the basketball jersey, sneakers, big afro, and yes, the basketball. Silas didn't appreciate all the characterism of Dunkerton, and seemed as intent on humiliating him for treating wrestling like a joke as he was on winning the match. Dunkerton got a bit of offense and had Silas in the Koji Clutch for a short while, but this was almost all Silas and he got the win with the headstand in the corner into the Arabian moonsault to go up to 3-1. Solid match, and I like that Silas has built up a bit of momentum since his return.

Silas does a postmatch promo saying he's catching up to Johnny Gargano and he's going to see him in the ring eventually, but Gargano comes out to confront him and say that they went out after the first EVOLVE show and he gave Silas a drink not knowing about his past or what it does to him. Gargano tried to apologize to Silas, but Silas just walked off on him so I guess the apology is not accepted and that we're going to see them in the ring at some point in the future.

We move on to Lince Dorado taking on Pinkie Sanchez with both guys somehow coming in with 0-0 records even though Sanchez won the Fray match at EVOLVE 8. I guess none of the matches at that show counted towards records, and not just the tournament matches. Sanchez is really growing on me, he may be the least physically imposing wrestler I've ever seen, but he's got a unique charisma that the fans really connect to and he's a solid worker to boot. While a lot of the smaller indy guys that do the Fray and other undercard matches are all about the highspots, Sanchez is good about selling the beatings he takes and slowed this match down a lot and worked over Dorado's leg so he could set up a figure four for the submission win. Obviously I'm not the only one who noticed because, after the postmatch promo talking about how it took him ten years to get to the big time, he closed the year by winning the main event of Dragon Gate USA's final show of the year.

Larry Dallas purchased some promo time in the next segment to come out with Ahtu (god bless you) and introduce his newest team which will take EVOLVE by storm, Scott Reed and Caleb Konley, collectively known as the Scene. Their first match in EVOLVE is against the current runaway wins leaders in the tag division, Cheech & Cloudy, who come in with a 4-0 record. Reed and Konley had both been popping up on DGUSA preshow matches for a long time and I'm happy to see them get the shot, especially with the illustrious Kevin Steen joining in on commentary. This was a very competitive match with a lot of very close falls on both sides before the Scene got the win with a devastating wheelbarrow DDT into a German suplex. Lenny Leonard asked Larry Dallas for comments, but Larry blew him off and headed to the back, so Lenny asked Cheech for comments on their first loss as a team. Cheech responded by laying Cloudy out with Go To Cheech and said "there's your statement" before heading to the back alone.

We move on to a very hard hitting match between Bobby Fish and Jon Davis, who both come in with losing records. In fact, Fish's entire story in EVOLVE so far has been that he started off with an 0-4 record, but those losses came in very tough matches against Kyle O'Reilly, Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, and Bryan Danielson, each of which he came close to winning and only lost after his opponents had to nearly kill him to keep him down. Fish made it to the semifinals of the Style Battle tournament, and now seeks to continue his roll against another Style Battle semifinalist in Davis.

Or at least that's the match we were supposed to get. Instead, Kevin Steen ran in and attacked both men about ten seconds into the match to call for a very early no contest. He mocked the rules of EVOLVE, but Fish challenged Steen to face him, then Davis challenged both of them to fight him in a non-sanctioned match, and asked the referee if he wanted to referee. The match started, so Davis immediately clotheslined the referee into next week and this became a three way brawl that spilled out to the floor several times before another referee even made it into the ring to continue officiating. Fish nearly made Steen tap out to the Fish Hook, but Davis came in and broke up the hold, drove Steen clear out of the ring with the Pounce, then hit Three Seconds Around The World to get the win on Fish. An understandably upset Fish went after Steen, who ended up getting mobbed by security and dragged to the back in characteristic fashion.

After that melee, we go to out next match with Tony Nese, coming in with a less than impressive 0-2 record, faces the debuting John Silver. I was kind of hoping this match would only be like three or four minutes long so I could make a joke about John Silver not having to go long, but they ended up going nearly 20 minutes and had what turned out to be my favorite match on the show up to this point. I totally expected this to be a throwaway match to fill time after the Steen segment, but this turned out to be a super physical war that kept me glued to the screen because it was such an even fight that you didn't know who was going to win but really enjoyed watching both guys give their all. I've talked about how impressed I am with Nese, but Silver came out of this match looking like a warrior because he's a small guy who took all of Nese's best shots including a Lionsault, a German suplex off the top, and more enziguiris and hard lariats than you can shake a stick at and kept getting up. Both guys showed a ton of intensity and the crowd was really getting into it by the end when Nese missed a 450 splash and Silver got a cutthroat backbreaker for the win. Lenny came in for the postmatch interview and Silver said he just showed in his EVOLVE debut what he can do and he wants to prove to everyone in the back that John Silver is here to make an impact.

Now for the first of two featured matches, as Sami Callihan takes on the debuting Dave Finlay, who had been let go from WWE only a short time before this event for what a lot of people consider to be a pretty silly reason. Nonetheless, WWE's loss is EVOLVE's gain as they now get to match one of their hardest hitters in Callihan against one of the renowned toughest guys in the business today, and they also did a promo backstage earlier in the evening where Finlay chewed out Jon Davis, Cheech, and Cloudy for being too timid and told them all to go out there and make an impression. It was a good segment, and led to another backstage segment where Davis told himself that Finlay was right and he needs to go out there and make an impact. One would also assume that Cheech made the decision to dump Cloudy because of what he heard from Finlay, and that going it alone would be the best way to make an impression for himself.

Finlay vs Callihan was easily the stiffest match of the night, and 90% of it was Finlay manhandling Callihan while Callihan absorbed all of Finlay's best shots and kept coming, and he would get in brief pockets of offense but Finlay would always shut him right back down and was in control for nearly the entire match. It's funny, but watching this match you could almost look at Callihan and see him as a younger version of Finlay in not just appearance, but in-ring style and demeanor as well. Finlay hit Callihan with the Celtic Cross twice, but Callihan kicked out both times so Finlay hit a Tombstone piledriver and finally managed to put Callihan down for a three count. Finlay put Callihan over in the postmatch promo as being one of the toughest guys he's ever been in the ring with, and I feel like this match did a good job of driving home Callihan's toughness and made him look great for hanging in there even after taking so much punishment from Finlay.

It's main event time, as Johnny Gargano (with a record of 6-2) faces Chuck Taylor (who comes in at 5-3) in a rematch of their bout at EVOLVE 7 when the company guaranteed a wins leader before the night was out, so when Gargano and Taylor both came out of their scheduled matches at 5-2, they had to do an immediate tiebreaker match which Gargano won when Dallas threw in the towel on Taylor, which didn't sit well with Taylor because he still felt he could have continued. Larry Dallas, who had been sponsoring both men since the beginning of the year, came out to try and convince Gargano and Taylor that this match shouldn't happen and they should just come to the back and start the party, but both men ignored him and started the main event. Dallas again tried to throw the towel in about a minute into the match, but this time the referee looked to Gargano to see what he wanted to do, so Gargano wiped his butt with the towel, crammed it into Larry's face, and fired him as an irate Larry Dallas stormed off to the back.

With Larry out of the way, Gargano and Taylor could now get down to business. Even though it was never explicitly stated on the DVD that they had spent so much time teaming up in DGUSA, they did do a promo at the beginning of the show talking about how they knew what each other brought to the table from the tag matches they had done together, and both would bring it tonight. Indeed, the match was very much wrestled as two guys who knew each other inside and out as they not only were prepared to evade or counter each other's moves, such as when Taylor dodged Gargano's spear through the ropes and then tried a Lionsault that Gargano avoided, but also caught each other with their own holds. Taylor gave Gargano the Gargano Escape, the Snake Eyes into the second turnbuckle, and Hertz Donut while Gargano hit Taylor with Sole Food and the Awful Waffle. Taylor hit a huge spot where he went over the barricade and to the very edge of BB Kings, then dashed clear across the venue and over the barricade onto Gargano, and then later on wound up on the stage in front of the ring and again saw Gargano's spear through the ropes coming, and he caught him coming through and hit a DDT on the stage that caused Gargano to just barely make it into the ring before being counted out. After another furious exchance, Taylor finally hit the Awful Waffle to defeat Gargano and now tie him at the top of the leader board.

Gargano and Taylor hugged in the middle of the ring after the match and Gargano raised Taylor's hand, then the show closed with a backstage promo of Larry Dallas venting to the Scene about Gargano firing him. Taylor came in and Dallas congratulated him on his win and said they don't need Gargano, but Taylor responded by firing Dallas as well and walking out.

* * *

This was a terrific show that made great use of Steen and Finlay while they were available, and also did a great job of playing into the current main event program in Dragon Gate USA. Johnny Gargano ended 2011 by defeating YAMATO to win the Open The Freedom Gate Title, but not before they teased dissension in Ronin between himself and Taylor. Now that EVOLVE and DGUSA are one universe, Taylor can point to this match and say that he deserves a title shot because he beat Gargano clean in the middle of the ring.

As usual on EVOLVE events, new wrestlers got the opportunity to show what they can do and, in EVOLVE 9's case, John Silver and Pinkie Sanchez both had great showings and Silver in particular came out of his match with Tony Nese looking like a warrior. The DVD also includes a hype video that promoted the show and iPPV, and alternate angle highlight reel that showed some of the best spots on the show from a different camera angle, as well as a great promo by Sami Callihan that was recorded in a junkyard and had Callihan talking about how he knows he's going to end up just like all the other cars piled up here, but before that happens, he's going to take Finlay and smack him right in the face even though he's one of Sami's idols because he's at the point in his career where he knows he can do that.

I highly recommend this show, as it may be the best top to bottom event EVOLVE has ever produced. It featured the special appearances by Steen and Finlay, but went beyond that and was packed with great wrestling, established wrestlers doing what they do best, hungry younger wrestlers trying to make a name, and it all added up to a great overall package to close out 2011 and set the company up for a strong beginning in 2012.

For more information on EVOLVE, including this coming weekend's EVOLVE 10 event and information on ordering DVDs of past shows, head over to the DGUSA website here.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!

• Tweet